Page 117 - How To Answer Interview Questions (II)

Job Interview Question 58

Tell me about the last time you were angry or upset at work.
What happened?

Emotional stability is a huge factor in your professionalism at work. No employer wants drama. They
want to know that you are in charge of yourself and your emotions and that you do not lose control.

That being said, we all get upset or angry. We are all under a lot of pressure at work, stressful
things happen, and just because we try to stay in control at all times doesn’t mean that others do, and
their actions and reactions have a powerful effect on us.

So the question is not IF you get angry at work, it’s WHEN you get angry at work. What do you do?
How do you handle that? In this question, they are asking for an example.

Your overall response needs to talk about how you successfully deal with negative emotions like
this:

“In any stressful, negative, or upsetting situation, I take a step back, take a deep breath, and think it
through. It never helps to lash out, and I know that my working relationships are going to have to last a
long time, so I never want to do anything to damage them out of anger.”

So then, your example might be:
“The last time I got angry was when a co-worker got upset and lashed out at me.I was tempted to
retaliate but I know it would have just escalated the situation and not accomplished anything. I knew
that she and I normally always get along, and that this was unusual behavior. I looked for what might
be causing her anger and realized she was completely stressed out because of X project. I offered to
help her with a particularly nasty sticking point, and she was glad of the help and ended up
apologizing. We still work well together on a regular basis.”
Or,
“The last time I got angry at work was when I was working on a particularly detailed and important
project and kept getting interrupted. I was on a deadline, so every interruption put me that much
farther behind. I could feel myself getting angry, so I stepped back, took a deep breath, and thought
about what I could do to solve the problem.I let everyone know that I had to have this done by 2pm so